Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Bumps in the Road

Nation’s infrastructure
gets a D+ from the country’s civil engineers.

Before we can get our infrastructure ready to handle the needs of the 21st century, we need to be sure it can handle the 20th. You can see the deficiencies in our road system anytime you get behind the wheel of your car, and all of the raw materials, components and finished products you buy and sell have to move on those same roads. A new report details how much improvement is
needed.

The country’s infrastructure again received a near-failing grade from the
American Society of Civil Engineers this month, highlighting a lack of
improvement four years after the group’s last assessment. The overall grade for
2017 is D+ — just as it was in 2013, reported Supply Chain 24/7.
Thousands of outdated bridges, roadways and tunnels are ill-equipped to manage
current traffic volumes, and a crumbling transit system is resulting in massive
congestion. Slowdowns along freight corridors impede economic growth, and $4.5
trillion is needed to achieve significant improvements in the transportation
grid, ASCE concluded.

Further, the group’s leadership urged lawmakers to approve a 25-cent increase
in the federal fuel tax, indexed to inflation, to ensure the solvency of the
federal Highway Trust Fund, which transportation agencies around the country
rely on the fund to help pay for infrastructure projects. Congress has not
raised the fuel tax — 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel and 18.4 cents per
gallon for gasoline — since 1993. The group also called on Congress to continue
to fund U.S. Department of Transportation’s infrastructure grants for states.

The 2017 report card examined 16 categories, and not much has improved since
2013’s report. This year, bridges were graded C+, improving from a D in 2013.“While the number of
bridges that are in such poor condition as to be considered structurally
deficient is decreasing, the average age of America’s bridges keeps going up
and many of the nation’s bridges are approaching the end of their design life,”
according to a summary of the report. Rail, one of the trucking’s biggest
challengers, garnered this year’s top grade of B, an improvement from C+ in
2013. Ports received a C+ and roads a D. Four years prior, they were graded C+,
and C, respectively. Mass transit received the lowest grade in 2017 from ASCE
with a D-.

In Washington, consensus exists that infrastructure urgently needs attention,
but coming up with the necessary funds has proven the stumbling block. Both
congressional Democrats and the Trump administration have called for roughly $1
trillion in spending, but details are scarce, and other legislative priorities
make it unlikely the issue will be tackled before this autumn at the soonest.
In the meantime, when you go over a bump in the road, thank your
representatives.

About TOTALogistix

TOTALogistix is a privately held corporation headquartered in Sparta, NJ. We helped define the Third Party Logistics Industry in 1991. Today we provide a wide spectrum of transportation and related supply chain management services to manufacturers, retailers and distributors throughout North America.
In our 20+ years in business, we’ve saved money for nine out of ten companies whose transportation we’ve analyzed. We’re confident we can do the same for you. Improving logistics performance starts here.